Back to Basics – What is included in Social Media Marketing?

There are people with varying levels of SEO, social media, and Internet knowledge out in the world today. For some of the younger crowd, Facebook and all-things-Internet are old hat. For some of us that are a little older, all-things-Internet can be kind of….err…new hat. Here is some actual information about how different age groups use social media. As you can see:

12-25 year-olds tend to use more mobile devices

25-45 year-olds tend to prefer E-mail and Facebook

46-55 year-olds tend to blog more but not use Twitter

56-65 year-olds do use social media but tend to stick with Facebook because they most often want to keep up with family

Because of the above statistics, we realize that not everyone knows as much about Internet Marketing as JenRus Freelance does, so we thought that it might be helpful to business owners and the general public to give you some ideas of what some of the main social media tools currently are and how they can be used in marketing:

1. Google – You probably know this one, but Google is a search engine (basically like the phone book of “old days”) that people use to find different websites and topics around desired keywords. This category also includes Yahoo! and Bing search engines. For search engines like Google, businesses want to rank high in organic keyword searches (non-paid, not Google paid advertising, more on that in a minute) because 79% of searchers click on one of the top three search engine results. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important, to get you to rank in these top results. Google also offers Google Adwords, in which you can buy advertising on Google. Google Adwords is good for businesses who want to drive sales.

2. Facebook – There are now over 350 million people using Facebook. These people include people of all ages and a larger percentage of women than men. Users can post pictures, add friends and family to their profile (so they can see their posted updates), and follow their favorite things. Because of the shear number of people using Facebook, it is definitely the place to be for personal use and for business use. Businesses can set up a Facebook Page or if you are an organization, a Facebook Group page might be a better fit. Social Networking sites are better for building relationships with followers/clients. Google and search engines are better for direct selling. However, Facebook does offer advertising opportunities that can be very affective because they are extremely targeted to what Facebook users specify that they like.

3. Twitter – Twitter is all about saying things in 140 characters of less. The every day people that I have talked to about Twitter, usually don’t get why you would use the service. I don’t find as much meaning in Twitter for personal use, I guess that I am just not that interesting. What I am going to tell people? “I am sitting in the chair.” An hour later, “I am still sitting in the chair.” You see what I mean. But, I do find Twitter very useful in business. I like to use Twitter as my news stream (think your national newspaper or specialty newspaper of the “old days”). Instead of going to say CNN, my regional newspaper, and all of my favorite websites, I just follow all of those organizations on Twitter so that I only have to go to one place to stay informed. Alternatively, Twitter can also be used by a business or organization to aggregate news to people who are interested. Even people that don’t follow you might find your content by a search and start following you, thus getting your more people who might be interested in what you do.

4. Blogs – Blogs are basically on-line journals. Studies have shown that often, high school age kids don’t blog, mostly because they often don’t have the life experiences to talk about. A blog can be a great way to keep your website current and to keep your customers informed about happenings around your business or organizations. Paired with a Twitter account and a Facebook presence, this can be a winning combination in building the community around your brand.

There are many other social media tools out there, but the above are a few of the main ones. We hope that we have taken some of the mystery out of what all of these tools are and what they can do for you.